IN DEEP PLACES 



AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 




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Copyright 1914 
By GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



OCT (9 1914 
©CI.A387096 



To J. 

"O thou that knowest, turn and see — 
"Heart of my heart, have I done well?" 



A number of the poems in this volume are here included 
through the courtesy of the publishers of the Century 
Magazine, Harper's Monthly, Scribner's Magazine, The 
Bellman, the London Bookman, the Nation, the Ladies* 
Home Journal, Lippincott's, Harper's Bazaar, the De- 
lineator, and the Poetry Journal, in which magazines they 
first appeared. 



CONTENTS 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Jehane i 

Allah is With the Patient lo 

At Dendera 19 

Romeo's Tomb 23 

Petruchio's Wife 26 

Rameses Worships Rameses 30 

In the Roman Forum 34 

Perugia 38 

In Bozen of a Sunday 41 

Anne Hathaway's Garden 43 

The Heart of Venice 44 

Queen Mary at Fotheringay 46 

Ludwig of Bavaria 48 

A Lynmouth Widow 50 

The Love of Woman 52 

A Wish 54 

An Idle Song 55 

Amorino -5^ 

Surprises 58 

In Deep Places 59 

His Song for Her Waking 60 

The Narrow Way 62 

The End of It . . 64 

A Miracle 66 



[-] 



CONTENTS 



Page 

The Toys' Complaint 67 

The Forfeit 69 

I Was Too Proud ........ 71 

To a Pressed Rose 72 

In Memory of a Dumb Friend .... 74 

To a Child 75 

Aunt Jane 76 

Lie- A wake Songs 78 

A Poet 81 

A Minor Poet 83 

One of Many 84 

Whom the Gods Love 86 

The Guest 88 

The Voice of the Unborn 90 

New Life 93 

The Standard Bearer 94 

The Double Crowning 95 

Beauty 98 

The Sacrifice 100 

The Lame Child . . ... . . .102 

Gypsy-Heart 104 

The Vagabond Grown Old 106 

Children of the Night 107 

The Little People 109 

Here Stood a House 11 1 

The Cricket in the Path 113 

Three Women 115 

The Child in Black 118 



[ - ] 



CONTENTS 



On a Hill-Top 119 

Dawn 122 

The Hero 125 

Immortal 127 

To Walter Scott 130 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IN DEEP PLACES 



I 



JEHANE 

" And had she come so far for this — 
"To part at last without a kiss, 
" Beside the haystack in the floods ! " 

Morris, 

N garments gray of sleety rain 

The wind across the sodden plain 
Went visibly, and through it went 
Gray as a gust, her slender form 
Swathed in wet robes, and forward bent 
Against the pushing of the storm. 
Stumbling she ran, as one far spent. 
But the pale splendour of her face 
Was set as toward a try sting place. 
And there was need of glances twain 
Ere one could see the lines of pain 
Round lips grown patient ere their day. 
And mark the early white that lay 
Like Lenten ashes in her hair. 
She went with eyes that never swerved 
Until at last she halted where 
The glazing pools had wellnigh drowned 
A heap of timbers that had served 
To prop a haystack, in years past. 
She stretched her on the icy ground 

[7] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



JEHANE (continued) 

Sighing for sheer content, as one 
Who wearied leans when day is done 
Upon love's breast, and said — 

At last — 

At last I come to you, to tell 

Of all these years. If ill or well 

I did, judge you; and yet, somehow, 

I think you will not judge me, now. 

But only stoop from God's right hand 

And whisper, " Dear, I understand/* 

Can they have wiped in Paradise 

So well the sorrow from your eyes 

That from your heart is cleansed away 

Even the shadow of that day 

When you and I, in just this place, 

Met death and Godmar face to face 

Beside the haystack in the floods? 

You by the sword to perish, I 

Later by bitter ways to die 

In Paris as a sorceress 

Unless . . . but there was no " unless " 

For me, who loved you so, I knew 

At such a price, each breath you drew 
_ 



IN DEEP PLACES 



JEHANE (continued) 

Would strangle you. I answered No. 

I never have forgot to miss 

Through all these years, the single kiss 

Denied our parting, long ago. 

But then I saw the end so near 

I thought, " Not long the waiting. Dear, 

" Until we meet !"...! did not know. . 



w 



HEN you were dead, he freed from stain 
His blade, and sheathed it. Through 
the rain 
We rode toward Paris. Wet and gray 
Closed in the curtains of the day. 
And as we rode, I thought, — " To night ! 
" Death is a bridal flower of white, 
" Mine for the plucking ! " And I swore 
That you and I should meet before 
The mockery of another dawn. 
Rapt from the flesh I rode, and ere 
I woke to know that we had drawn 
Rein at an inn, Godmar was there 
Beside my stirrup. Down I slid 
Ere he could touch me. 



[3] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



JEHANE (continued) 

" What I did, 
" You bade me do ! " I heard his breath 
Catch like a sob. " You still choose death, 
" Jehane? It is not yet too late — " 
It seemed I was too tired to hate. 
For I felt nothing. Pale and grim 
I saw the tortured face of him 
An evil star against the night, 
And then — it faded. . . . 

When the sight 
Came back to me, I lay in bed, 
An old bent woman o'er my head 
Crooning in mother-wise, her face 
Kind in the firelight. " Mary's grace 
" Be praised," she cried, " you live at length ! 
" Drink this, dear lady, mend your 

strength ! " 
I turned away, but — " Think ! " she said ; 
" A double hunger must be fed. 
" Not yours alone the need." 

My heart 
Stopped. Then it strove to beat apart 
My breast. With lips grown stiff and cold 

[7] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



JEHANE (continued) 

I stammered, " He must not be told — 
" Godmar — as you may hope for Heaven ! " 
" No whisper, by the Sorrows Seven! " 
She vowed, and then — " You had not 

known ? 
" Poor child. . . ." 

I might have been her own. 
I cannot pray for her by name — 
God knows her, though. 

The morning came, 
But now I could not bear to die. 
The trees against a perfect sky 
Prickled with twigs. It seemed that I 
Was part of the awakening earth 
And that to bring your child to birth 
Was all for which myself was made. 
I would have trodden unafraid 
Hell's deepest, with that end in sight. 
Robert — the gates of hell that night 
Again stood open. I went in. . . . 



[5] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



JEHANE (continued) 

T CARED as little for the sin 

As for the anguish and the shame. 
It seemed my secret swept like flame 
Body and soul, and burned them clean. 
About his castle, gold and green 
The thickets kindled, and I said 
Within my heart, " When they grow red. 
God pitied me; ere spring was spent 
War called to Godmar, and he went. 
Watched like a prisoner was I 
But strangely sweet the days went by 
Until I smiled to see at last 
The crimson leaves come whirling past. 
Robert — the rapture of that pain! 



w 



HEN with the snows he came again, 

I had resolved what must be done. 
Silent I met him, with my son 
Held in my arms. He stopped astound. 
In all the room there was no sound 
But his hoarse breathing. Then — 

" Jehane . . . . 
" I had not thought of — this . . ." he said. 



IN DEEP PLACES 



JEHANE (continued) 



w 



ITH solemn masses we were wed. 

What mattered it that Godmar gave 
The boy his name? There were your 

brave 
Clear eyes — your brow — 

I feared to bear 
Godmar a child, lest he compare 
The twain, when he must needs have 

known. ... 
But years went by, with yours alone 
The pivot of our household pride. 
He seemed the gallant heart that died 
In me, with you. And Godmar — strange 
That simple happiness can change 
A man so much ! Thwarted desire 
Made him a fiend — but when the fire 
Was left unchecked, it swiftly burned 
Its violence away, and turned 
To comfortable embers, fit 
To warm a hearth where musing sit 
Good placid folk whose youth is done. 
While he would talk of what " our son " 
Should do, sometime — far far away 

m 



IN DEEP PLACES 



JEHANE (continued) 

As through the rain, I saw that day 
When murdered at his feet you lay, 
And thought, could it be I and he 
Who sat at meat so quietly. 
Your boy between us! 

Years that seem, 
Now they are over, like a dream 
I am too weary to recall. . . . 
The night he died, I told him all. 
One heavy tear slid down his cheek. 
He fought for breath awhile, then, weak 
But clear, he spoke — " My heir . . . the 

same. ..." 
No more. And so to Godmar came 
His touch of greatness at the end. 
I prayed for him as for a friend. 

ry OBERT, it seems to me to-day 
No life is wholly thrown away. 
We are the seedcorn, you and I, 
Dead in the dark, that youth may pry 
The clods asunder toward the sky. 
My part is played, my task is done. 

[8] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



JEHANE (continued) 

Life opens nobly to our son. 
The King has made him knight, and he 
Has now no longer need of me — 
Man as he is, and true, and strong. . . . 
The kiss that I have kept so long,— 
It seems that all my life has passed 
Into that kiss . . . and now ... at last. 
Beloved . . . now. . . . 

A sigh, and then 
No other sound. So still she lay 
The hailstones on her mantle gray 
Deepened to little drifts like snow. 
This was the way they met again 
Where they had parted, long ago. 



[9] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ALLAH IS WITH THE PATIENT 

A LLAH is with the patient. Long ago 

I sat with eyes and thoughts that wan- 
dered far 
And heard as in a dream my father's voice 
Speaking to me as now I speak to thee, 
Who heedest Httle as I heeded him. 
What place had patience in a young man's 

heart? 
The sky was languid with the sunset glow, 
The sweet air swooned with purple mys- 
teries, — 
Was it an hour for aught but eagerness 
As women passed on slender tinkling feet. 
Flashing like jewelled beetles from the dusk, 
And vanishing again, yet leaving clear 
A trail of perfume on the evening air 
That drew a man to follow? Who was I 
To squat with gray-beards by the waning 
fire? 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ALLAH IS WITH THE PATIENT (continued) 

Well I remember how the challenge came 
Of jasmine scent from wayward garments 

blown 
And how I leapt to meet it! As I went, 
I heard my father sighing in his beard, 
"Allah is with the patient." But there 

comes 
An end to eagerness. I had not thought 
I could grow weary of enkindling eyes. 
Slight luring limbs, and fingers trained to 

beat 
The song of passion on the hearts of men 
As on a darabukkeh. But there came 
A night when I grew sick of jasmine scent 
As of the scent of fever, and the sight 
Of smiling lips moist-parted left me cold — 
A night when walls closed like a trap on me. 
And like a grave-stone lay upon my head 
The shadow of the roof. So I went out 
Under the calm illimitable sky. 
Under the quiet scrutiny of stars 
That stood apart like spirits, and looked on, 
And as I felt the sweep of desert wind 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ALLAH IS WITH THE PATIENT (continued) 

Upon my face, I raised my voice and sang. 
" Wise with much seeing are the eyes of 

night. 
" What can amaze, what sicken, what delight 
" The passionless cold vigil of the stars? 
" Too much has been for any more to be 
"That can dismay their far tranquil- 
lity " 



T DID not sing the ending of the song, 
'■■ " Thine eyes are like the stars, O heart of 
me — 
" Like the unmoved omniscience of the 

stars. . . ." 
I could not sing those words; the eyes I knew 
Smouldered like perfumed braziers near to 

earth, 
Or like the homely embers that make warm 
The cooking-pot. " Perchance in Paradise," 
I thought, " the houris that are Allah's glance 
" Of favour on the faithful, have those eyes 
" Of wise and starry calm. I will await 

[T7] " 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ALLAH IS WITH THE PATIENT (continued) 

" The gaze of them." And as there came to 

me 
A sudden memory of my father's words, 
I fiung them like a challenge to the stars — 
"Allah is with the patient!" I was 

young. . . . 



T 



HE hand of power on our village closed, 
For there was war; and many of the 
youths 
Went full of heaviness, with backward eyes. 
It was not so with me ; gladly I strode 
As to a feast, and bright upon me shone 
The lifted brows of peril — but I found 
Small glory in that war ; of hunger much, 
And much of weariness and aching limbs. 
Much of the lurking death we could not see 
That trod our shadows, striking from be- 
hind— 
The sudden bullet singing from the waste 
Was our mean death-chant, not the gener- 
ous cry 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ALLAH IS WITH THE PATIENT (continued) 

Of clanging steel; it seemed we never 

ceased 
Panting across interminable sands 
Down into troughs that, sneering, the mir- 
age 
Painted with blue like sky-reflecting pools, 
Up over ridges where the sand slid back. 
Drowning the print the lifted foot had left, 
Sweating we laboured ; always as it seemed 
We came too late for glory. Other swords 
In hostile blood found easing of their thirst. 
And other eyes with pride of battle 

burned, — 
Not ours, that strained too often toward the 

blue 
That mocked us in the hollows of the sand 
Looked dull upon a pool that was no lie. 
As when we knew that we were free to seek 
Our homes again, and that the war was 

done 
And victory was ours, that " victory " 
Left us but listless, for its sound was flat 
Like a cracked cymbal. Once again I said 



[14] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ALLAH IS WITH THE PATIENT (continued) 

" Allah is with the patient ! " and a man 
Who heard it, laughed. His laugh was ill 

to hear, 
But lo, his eyes gave back my face to me, 
And my own smile was bitterer than his. 
But softly spoke another, " Dost thou laugh, 
"Brother? It is no jest — the word is 

true — 
"Allah is with the patient. Blessed be 
" His name to all the ages." " It is well 
" For thee to speak, perchance," the laugh- 
er said. 
" Thou goest gladly to a waiting home ; 
"What dost thou care for glory? But for 

me 
" A woman waits who will but spit on me 
" Since I have won no fame to honour her." 
" And I," then cried myself, " for me there 

waits 
" No woman anywhere ; my only hope 
" Was glory for the glory's sake, and now, 
" Cheated of that, I am a dupe indeed." 
" Nay," said our comrade gently, and I saw 



[15] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ALLAH IS WITH THE PATIENT (continued) 

A little pulse that quivered in his cheek, 
"For me there waits no woman. She is 

dead, 
" And on her breast the babe I never saw 
" Is also dead. I had no will to go — 
"The soldiers took me. Blessed be the 

name 
" Of Allah — '' " And you still can say," I 

cried, 
"That he is with the patient?" Then he 

turned 
The slow majestic sadness of his look 
Full upon me. " Were it not so," he said, 
"Would they not be more lonely than the 

stars? " 
He went away, and left us there afraid — 
And yet he was a little man, and weak. 
Humbler I turned me homeward, for I 

knew 
There was a thing I had not understood. 
When to the village I came back at last, 
There were no s6ngs for me. I looked for 

none. 



[i6] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ALLAH IS WITH THE PATIENT (continued) 

Only my father met me at the door 
And peered into my face, for he was old 
And saw but little — yet he saw enough 
To make him smile. " It is my son," he 

said, 
" He has come back to me a man at last — 
" Allah is with the patient." 

So I stayed 
Quiet among my people, and I ploughed 
My father's feddans, and the days went 

by. 
I wedded and was faithful — if at times 
Dreams drew me forth alone beneath the 

stars. 
She found me no less kindly for the dreams. 
Then thou wert bom, and when I looked on 

thee 
As full of pride she laid thee in my arms, 
I saw in thee those wise and starry eyes 
Of lonely glory — and my heart was glad. 
Finding my dream come true. But with 

the years 
The heavenly wonder died, and in its place 
— 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ALLAH IS WITH THE PATIENT (continued) 

The old earth-wonder came. And then I 

thought 
" Would he but learn of me — " Ah ! he is 

gone. . . . 
Each for himself must turn the page of life 
And read its wisdom through a blur of 

tears, 
And yet — might I have made it clear to 

him, 
My son! May Allah, blessed be his name, 
Allah, whose heart has yearned the ages 

through 
To every generation, as my heart 
Yearns to my son, — may Allah give him 

light. 
Thou who art with the patient, lead him 

home 
And give me of thy patience, while I wait. 



[i8] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AT DENDERA 

TTERE in this narrow chamber, where one ray 
^ Quickens the jewel-coloured walls, I stand 
Alone, a Queen, to speak to thee, a Queen. 
I, Cleopatra, lift my face to meet 
Thy silent face, Hathor, in this thy house, 
Hither I came through fields of mellow 

green 
Where prostrate peasants lifted peering eyes 
To see the Great Queen's passing; labour 

fell 
Stricken to silence at the sight of me. 
Only the patient saqquias wailed on 
As round and round the blindfold bullocks 

trod — 
And yet I knew behind me they arose 
Like trampled grain, and went about their 

toil, 
Even as my courtiers when my shadow falls 
No more upon them, turn them to their 

sport. 

U9] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AT DENDERA (continued) 

That world — what has that world to do 

with me? 
Here in thy temple, here am I at home, 
For thou and I are one at heart. To thee 
Hath ever been my longing, though at first 
I knew it not. Earth was too beautiful — 
I could not see beyond — and all of me 
That was of earth, cried out for earth's de- 
light. 
I was athirst for life, and royally 
I took what I deemed life — ay, like a Queen 
I crushed the grapes of mortal joy and 

drank 
The wine thereof, and still I was athirst. 
Again I sought new vintage, and again. 
While to my fingers clung the lees like blood. 
Hathor, thou Merciless ! I give thee thanks. 
Through all those drunken days I thirsted 

still! 
And yet I was so slow to understand. 
Nor knew that when on passion's very 

mouth 
I trembled and grew cold, it was thy face 

-_ 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AT DENDERA (continued) 

That came between, slaying the transient joy 

With thine immortal breath ; and so I fled 

From lover unto lover, till at last 

I knew that not in man was my desire 

Nor in the fruit of man. I came to thee, 

Hathor, at last, as now I come to thee. 

It is enough that I am beautiful 

For Beauty's sake — I ask not that men's 

eyes 
Caress my loveliness, nor that a child 
Should bear it like a banner down the years. 
Enough for me that I myself have lived 
And looked upon thy face of mystery. 
Thou Gladness of the gods. ... I am con- 
tent. 
Have I not proved what earth-bound hearts 

call joy? 
Love . . . what is love ? Have I not known 

desire, — 
Yea, have I not brought forth a son? And 

yet 
My heart was still athirst. Thou knowest, 
thou, 

{7r\ 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AT DENDERA (continued) 

Smiling that still wise smile of thine. Thou 

too 
Hast borne a Horus, yet we worship thee 
Not babe at breast, like Isis, but alone, 
Mateless, unconquerable, — there is not one 
Of all the gods may dare to call thee his. 
Mistress of whom thou wilt, but slave of 

none. 
Therefore, since thou hast shown to me thy 

way. 
Free as the desert wind, I lift to thee 
My hands, and in them, Eg5^t. Unto thee 
Will I raise up a temple, fairer far 
Than even this; to thee will I raise up 
Myself in perfect beauty, perfect power, 
My foot upon the weakness of mankind, 
Spuming it while it lifts me. Men shall see 
Hathor in Cleopatra, and bow down 
Smitten to worship that shall know no end. 
Yea, even Rorne! Thou seest . • . and 

shalt see. . . . 

ND nearing cloudlike o'er the lower blue, 
Antony's galley swelled her amber sails. 



A 



[22] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



A 



AT ROMEO'S TOMB 

Y, gentle stranger, here lies Romeo. 
Thou art no Veronese . . . from Flor- 
ence ? What, 
Speak they of Romeo so far away? 
Tell me, my son, what do they say of him? 
" The king of lovers — and a noble heart 
" Unwilling to brook life when love was 

gone -— " 
Are they not young who say it — mates of 

thine ? 
So many words that blossom fulsome sweet 
Ripen to bitter fruit as men grow old — 
I would not have you think of Romeo thus. 
His death was noble? Nay — it was but 

young. 
No friend of his ? I was his nearest friend, 
Even more privy to his inmost mind 
Than was Mercutio's self, I dare to say. 
And therefore I would have thee think of him 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AT ROMEO'S TOMB (continued) 

Thoughts that shall change only toward ten- 
derness 
As the blood cools and slackens in its race 
And less of life lies in a woman's hand. 
Judge not my Romeo as a man is judged. . . . 
Hadst thou but seen him when he came to 

me! 
(He knew that I would shelter him, poor 

child, 
Though he had laid a score of Tybalts cold) 
We heard Verona roaring through the 

streets 
Louder than floods in spring. The memory 
After so long, is pitiful to tears — 
His heart was fluttering like the candle-flame 
Before the altar, on a w4ndy day. 
Romeo a man ? No, no — he was a child, 
A slender, scarcely-budded slip of spring. 
The calyx-bursting promise of a rose 
Flung to the foamy rage of Adige 
And beaten down the rapids to its doom — 
A blade untempered, broken ere its time 
In the great battle — oh, a child, a child 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AT ROMEO'S TOMB (continued) 

Caught in the millstones that grind up men's 

hearts 
To be the bread of centuries unborn. 
Dreaming, he was enamoured o£ a dream, 
And from the drowsy wonder of his eyes 
Rubbed life like sleep away ; so burst on him 
The blinding day of immortality. . . . 
On him, who was not yet awake to earth ! 
How like a child astray he must have stared 
Upon the pitying angels ! 

Juliet? 
Ay, call her woman if thou wilt, for she 
Can bear thy judgment; but for Romeo — 
Pray thou for him to-night as for a child. 
My name ? 'Tis Laurence. 

Peace to thee, my son. 



[25] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



PETRUCHIO'S WIFE 

Y, go your ways, my lord. Look where he 

struts 
And ruffles it along the sunny street ! 
His doublet*s broken at the seam again — 
111 look to it when he comes home. He's 

worse 
Than any wanton youngling on his gear. 
A gallant bearing — he is well worth ten 
Of my fair sister's pretty mummer. Bah ! 
Playing the schoolmaster to win a bride 
He might have had by knocking at the door 
And shaking a fat purse ! Petruchio 
Measures more nearly to a man's degree ; 
Yet he is but a boy, an o'er-grown boy. 
Was ever man so easily deceived? 
What, did he think that he could master me 
By wearying my body, starving it, 
Shaming it with vile raiment? Bless the 

fool! 
And yet I swear I did not bless him then — 



IN DEEP PLACES 



PETRUCHIO'S WIFE (continued) 

I could have slain him rather ; but I thought, 
" Kate, thou art married ; make the best of it. 
" Thou hadst been wiser to lead apes in hell, 
" But since thy cup of folly has been poured, 
" Drink it off smiling. He shall pay anon." 
There at Bianca's feast, when he would show 
His power so braggartly, I had well-nigh 
Defied him to his face, — but I recalled 
Hortensio's fine madam, and her taunt. 
" What other way to sting so well," thought 

I, 

"As show myself the model, her the 

shrew? " 
Eh, did I sweetly play the pattern wife? 
Ask of Petruchio's purse, where merrily 
His fellow-bridegroom's golden forfeits 

clinked — 
(Until he spent the better part of them 
Upon a cap richer an hundredfold 
Than that I spumed to please him!) Am I 

tamed? 
Thus much, perhaps . . . that now I play 

my part 



IN DEEP PLACES 



PETRUCHIO'S WIFE (continued) 

Not bitterly, but laughing in a sleeve 

Which now is fashioned to my own desire, 

I praying his approval ; and instead 

Of anger at his boastful boyishness 

Is something, neither pity nor yet love — 

The child of both, perchance. 

I used to think 
That when I held the larder keys, himself 
Should fast some day, to pay that fast of 

mine. 
But when the time came, I no longer cared 
For little vengeance on a little wrong. 
And so I feed him well, and speak him fair, 
And keep him bravely clad, and when he 

meets 
His friends, he vaunts the merits of his 

wife, 
While they all marvel at the mastered 

shrew ! 
Look — he comes home — he*s never long 

away. 
How boyish-gay he v/aves an eager hand, 
Seeing me waiting at the window here ! 



[28] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



PETRUCHIO'S WIFE (continued) 

God rest thee merry, good Petruchio; 
How I could love thee . . . wert thou more 
a man! 

My excellent dear lord! Art thou returned? 
Then is the day grown bright for Katharine! 



[29] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



RAMESES WORSHIPS RAMESES AT 
ABU SIMBEL 



O 



F all the gods I understand thee least, 

Thou god whose altar is the heart of me; 
Therefore I leave the Others to the priest 
While I myself do reverence to thee. 
Avails my worship aught? The incense 

mounts 
In silent exhalation like a prayer 
Made visible — what sense of thine accounts 
Acceptable its fragrance? Thou art — 

where? 
I call unto the Others, and they hear; 
But thou — I cannot tell. Thou art too 

near. 

4c 4: ^ 4: ^ 



T 



HE Sun I know: the lotus-bud of dawn 
Through countless vigils have I seen un- 
fold. 
Veil after veil of green and rose withdrawn 



IN DEEP PLACES 



RAMESES WORSHIPS RAMESES (continued) 

Yielding at last the blinding heart of gold 
To me expectant. I have known the Sun, 
His kindness and his wrath, as I have known 
The counsellor who sits at my right hand, 
Yet thou to me art still the Hidden One. 
The cold mysterious Moon, pacing alone 
His jewelled house — the restless golden 

sand 
Forever changing, like another sea — 
The fruitful River in its majesty, 
Mother alike and father of our land — 
These I can see, these I can understand. 
What veil impenetrable shelters Thee? 

^TpHE Judges of the darkness and the dead, 
Unhuman arbiters of heaven and hell, 
Creatures whose face is not the face of man. 
Creatures whose power of life and death 

began 
With life and death, and shall with them be 

sped — 
Unseen, I know them; yea, I know them 
well. 

~1 



IN DEEP PLACES 



RAMESES WORSHIPS RAMESES (continued) 

I call them each by name . . . but thou 

Unknown, 
What name have I to call thee save mine 

own? 



M 



INK own — and yet I know thou art not I. 
Here in this teniple have I honoured thee 
Where by the River, carven giant-high. 
My fourfold image, eloquently dumb. 
Sits dominating centuries to come. 
I say it is thine Image — do I lie ? 



A CROSS my proudest moments I have heard 
■^ ^ Thy terrible hushed laughter; stranger 
still — 
Sometimes amid the battle, as I fought 
With a god's fury, plain as spoken word 
Thy patient weary sigh revealed to me 
My rage as futile as the prize I sought. 
And often when my courage has been chill 
With inward questioning, my languor caught 
Fire of a sudden from thy smile unseen. 

[3^] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



T 



RAMESES WORSHIPS RAMESES (continued) 

Again, when some flushed vision swift and 
keen 

Struck music from my fancy, as the sun 

From Memnon, came thy calm, unuttered 
scorn — 

"So many lessons — dullard, still un- 
taught? '' 
***** 

HOU art a god, and I am but a king. 

The people hail me god, and oft a glow 
Responsive thrills me, till thy thought I 

know — 
" Thou simple fool, thou perishable thing, 
"'Tis I they worship — thou art but the 

shrine." 
Nay, I am more— -else could I know thee 

there ? 
I know that in some sort I am divine. 
Yea, this I know — and yet I know not 

how — 
When the last mystery to me is bare. 
The underworld shall show me on thy brow 
The final beauty Death has wrought on mine. 

[33] " 



IN DEEP PLACES 



N 



IN THE ROMAN FORUM 

OTHING but beauty, now. 

No longer at the point of goading fear 

The sullen, tributary world comes near 

Before all-subjugating Rome to bow. 

No more the pavement of the Forum rings 

To breathless victory's exultant tread 

Before the heavy march of captive kings. 

Here stood the royal dead 

In sculptured immortality, their gaze 

Remote above the turmoil of the street 

Hoarse with its living struggle at their feet. 

Here spoke the law — that voice of bronze 

was heard 

By all the world, and stirred 

The latent mind of nations in the bud. 

Bright with the laurels, bitter with the 

blood 

Of heroes upon heroes was this place 

Where the strong heart of an imperial race 
_ 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IN THE ROMAN FORUM (continued) 

Beat with the essence of a nation's life. 
Princes and people evermore at strife — 
Incense and worship — clash of armoured 

rage — 
Ambition soaring up the sky like flame — 
Interminable war that mortals wage 
From century to century the same. 
Still Fortune holds the crown for those who 

dare; 
Mankind in many a distant otherwhere 
Leaps panting toward the promise of her 

face — 
But here, no more of coveting nor care. 
No longer here the weltering human tide 
Sluices the market-place and scatters wide 
The weak as foam, to perish where they 

list. 
Now by the sovereign Silence purified 
Spring showers all with fragrant amethyst. 
Were once these pulses violent and swift 
As those that shake the cities of to-day? 
How indolently sweet the petals drift 
From yonder nodding spray! 



[35] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IN THE ROMAN FORUM (continued) 

Warming their broidered raiment in the sun 
The little bright-eyed lizards bask and run 
O'er fallen temples gracious in decay. 
Man's arrogance with calculated art 
Boasted in marble — now the quiet heart 
Of the Great Mother dreams eternal things 
In brief bright roses and ethereal green, 
Or more exuberant, sings 
In poppies poured profusely to the air 
From secret hoards of scarlet. Nothing 

seen 
But swoons with beauty — beauty every- 
where — 
Nothing but beauty . . . now. 
Here is the immortality of Rome. 
Not where the city rises, dome on dome. 
Seek we the living soul of ancient might, 
But in this temple of green silence — here 
Flame purer than the vestal is alight. 
The world again draws near 
In reverence, but now it comes to pay 
The tribute of a nobler coin than fear. 
In wondering worship, not in fierce dismay, 



[36] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IN THE ROMAN FORUM (continued) 

Men bow the knee to what of Rome re- 
mains. 
Time's long lustration has effaced her 

stains. 
All that is perishable now is past 
And earth her portion tenderly transmutes 
To evanescent beauty of her own, 
Jubilant flowers and nectar-breathing fruits, 
Leaving in deathless glory at the last 
Divinity alone. 



[37] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



PERUGIA 

TT^OR the sake of a weathered gray city set high 
on a hill 

To the northward I go, 

Where Umbria's valley lies mile upon emer- 
ald mile 

Outspread like a chart. 

The wind in her steep narrow streets is eter- 
nally chill 

From the neighbouring snow, 

But linger who will in the lure of a southerly 
smile, 

Here is my heart. 

TXTROUGHT to a mutual blueness are moun- 
^ tains and sky ; 

Intermingling they meet. 

Little gray breathings of olive arise from 

the plain 
Like sighs that are seen. 



IN DEEP PLACES 



PERUGIA (continued) 

For man and his maker harmonious toil, 

and the sigh 
Of such labour is sweet, 
And the fruits of their patience are vistas 

of vineyards and grain 
In a glory of green. 



N 



O wind from the valley that passes the 

casement but flings 
Invisible flowers. 
The carol of birds is a gossamer tissue of 

gold 
On a background of bells. 
Sweetest of all in the silence the nightingale 

sings 
Through the silver-pure hours, 
Till the stars disappear like a dream that 

may never be told, 
That the dawning dispels. 



[39] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



PERUGIA (continued) 

"^TEVER so darkling an alley but opens at last 
On unlimited space, 
Each gate is the frame of a vision that 

stretches away 
To the rims of the sky. 
Never a scar that was left by the pitiless 

past 
But has taken a grace 
Like the mark of a smile that was turned 

upon children at play 
In a summer gone by. 



M 



ANY the tyrants, my city, that held thee in 

thrall. 

What remains of them now? 
Names whispered back from the dark 

through a portal ajar — 
They come not again. 
By men thou wert made and wert marred, 

but outlasting them all 
Is the soul that is thou — 
A soul that shall speak to my soul till I too 

pass afar. 
And perchance, even then. 

[4^] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IN BOZEN OF A SUNDAY 

TN Bozen of a Sunday, the air is gay with chim- 

ing; 
In the valley full of belfries, every clapper is 

aswing ; 
Bell-song and bird-song, each with each is 

rhyming 
In Bozen of a Sunday, when the hills are glad 

with Spring. 

TN Bozen of a Sunday, between the walls of 

roses 
That border merry Talfer with many-coloured 

sweet. 
Children are gayer and sweeter than the posies. 
And they drown the river's chatter with the 

patter of their feet. 



[41] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IN" BOZEN OF A SUNDAY (continued) 

nr^HE boys and girls go walking, when Ro- 

sengarten's flushing. 
Her eyes are on the mountain-peaks, but 

little does he care 
For blush of the hills, when he sees his 

sweetheart blushing, 
Or for sunset on the snows, when he can 

see it on her hair. 

'TpHE little feet, play- weary, stumble home- 
•*• ward all around them, 

For a chill steals down the valley as the 

gold to silver gleams. 
Shy cling their hands, as a touch unseen 

had bound them. 
And his eyes are full of tenderness, and hers 

are full of dreams — 
In Bozen of a Sunday, when the hills are 

glad with Spring. 



[42] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



o 



ANNE HATHAWAY'S GARDEN 

N such a day of quiet rain 

When all the air was gray and sweet 
With unseen flowers, and Spring's dear pain 
Of longing in her pulses beat 



'HE may have stood with arms outspread 

Among the box-trees dripping spice, 
And listened for his coming tread 
As for the harps of Paradise. 



w 



E sigh for him whom God's red spur 

Drove glorious up the heights of tears,- 
But in the valley, what of her. 
And her long aching outgrown years? 



[43] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



H 



THE HEART OF VENICE 

ERE is no song that comes unsought 

Bom of a mood a breath may chill. 
By labour was this beauty wrought. 
Not God himself by sovereign will 
Could shape this wonder like a hill 
Or bid it rise like moon and sun. 
Only through man such works are done. 



N 



EED was that men should greatly do 

And greatly die, ere this could be. 
The blood of glory pulses through 
This golden-grounded imagery. 
The very bosom of the sea 
Has moulded to its ample grace 
The pavement of this holy place, 



[44] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE HEART OF VENICE (continued) 



A 



S might a goddess deign to wear 

The garment by her priesthood made. 
The opulent shadows tame the air 
That softly moves as if it prayed 
Among the lives of men, portrayed 
So truly, that to-day we cry — 
" That is my brother — that is I." 

'ET not immortal — is it true 

Such loveliness can disappear? 
Some day will see a richer blue 
Upon the sea, and through the clear 
And sunlit waters, glimpses dear 
Of beauty won at such a cost 
It never can be wholly lost. 



npHE deep that gave will take again — 
^ But this bright memory will awake 
Ambition in the hearts of men 
To build new beauty for the sake 
Of what has vanished, and to make 
Sublimer temples of the sea. 
If this were immortality? 



[45] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



QUEEN MARY AT FOTHERINGAY 



W 



HAT have I gained who gave so much? 
A crown too slippery for my clutch — 
A body misused and a heart abused. 
What have I gained for all I spent? 
Many a dead man's curse to rue, 
Many a lover and not one true, 
Many a bribe, though not my due — 
Yet I have lived, and am content. 



'AY that I squandered life — confessed. 

Had I been miser of my best, 
To-day I would be in penury 
Even as now, a fool betrayed. 
The crown of stars and the nether flame 
Both have I proved in the teeth of blame. 
Have not the years in pride and shame 
Given the worth of all I paid? 



[46] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



QUEEN MARY AT FOTHERINGAY (cont.) 

^TpHE course I chose was the course I kept; 
-■■ In the face of doom like a flame I leapt. 
Bitter and sweet have I known complete — 
One adventure is left to try. 
Life I have finished, mire to throne — 
Here at life's end I stand alone. 
Headsman, warder of worlds unknown, 
Show me now what it means to die ! 



[47] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



LUDWIG OF BAVARIA 

T HAVE been set so high above mankind 
That all alone am I. 
Above me broods, ruthlessly dumb and blind. 
The riddle of the sky — 
The casket of the Undiscovered Light 
Whose vision makes divine, 
Hidden from lesser men's ignoble sight 
But destined to be mine. 
For I have risen to the final snow 
In solitude complete, 
And trodden all men live and die to know 
Under my mounting feet. 
Alone, alone I seek with soul afire 
The sacrament supreme. 
What anodyne has earth for my desire 
Who famish for a dream? 
Music is mine, and solitary splendour, 
White, sky-encroaching peaks — 
But oh, the call intolerably tender 



IN DEEP PLACES 



LUDWIG OF BAVARIA (continued) 

From lips no mortal seeks, 
In lands the boldest wanderer never char- 
ted, 
Whose pinnacles of stone 
Inviolate, whose valleys virgin-hearted 
Open to me alone! 

But I am weary, for the time is long; 
Why does the dawn delay? 
Weary of even lightning-leaps of song, 
Weary of night and day. 
For voices call me, call me from my sleep 
So that I rest no more. 
Like ripples from an undiscovered deep 
Upon a lonely shore. 
Bloom speedily for me. Immortal Rose, 
My being to fulfil! 

Haste — for the silent skies above me close 
Darker . . . and darker still. . . . 



[49] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



H 



A LYNMOUTH WIDOW 

E was straight and strong, and his eyes 

were blue 

As the summer meeting of sky and sea, 
And the ruddy cliffs had a colder hue 
Than flushed his cheek when he married 

me. 



VIT'E passed the porch where the swallows 

^^ breed. 

We left the little brown church behind, 
And I leaned on his arm, though I had no 

need, 
Only to feel him so strong and kind. 

/^NE thing I never can quite forget; 

^^^ It grips my throat when I try to pray — 
The keen salt smell of a drying net 
That hung on the churchyard wall that day. 

[7^1 



IN DEEP PLACES 



A LYNMOUTH WIDOW (continued) 

TTE would have taken a long, long grave — 
A long, long grave, for he stood so 
tall • . . 
Oh God ! the crash of a breaking wave, 
And the smell of the nets on the churchyard 
wall! 



[51] 



IN" DEEP PLACES 



I 



THE LOVE OF WOMAN 

F he should come to me to-day 

In the strong beauty of his youth, 
Profuse of hope and rich in truth, — 
If he should come to me and say : 
" Give me your love ! Of womankind 
" On you and you alone I call ! " 
I could but answer, " Dear and blind, 
" What more is left for my bestowing? 
" Without your asking or your knowing 
"Have I not given all? " 



A 



ND should he come to me some day 

When withered listless leaves are blown. 
Where I had waited long alone ; 
If he should come to me and say : 
" Give me your love for charity; 
" My dreams are squandered ever3nvhere. 
** My famished hopes fall dead from me 
" Like the dull harvest of the air. 

[52] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE LOVE OF WOMAN (continued) 

" I seek no longer joy, but rest — 
" Brief peace upon a kindly breast 
" Till my tired heart is quiet clay." 
I could but say, " Love, while you live, 
" My love is neither mine to give 
** Nor mine to take away." 



[53] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



I 



A WISH 

WOULD that we had won of love 
More than the little coin thereof. 
And all the rest had flung away 
The gain supreme to keep ; 
I would that we might understand 
All that in Eden God first planned, 
Ere ever men had learned to slay 
Or women learned to weep. 
But ah, that visions cannot last — 
That perfect moments fade so fast, 
And men to pettiness return 
Who spoke with God erstwhile! 
I would that we lay side by side 
And that the curious moonbeams pried 
In vain at our closed lids to learn 
The secret of our smile. 



[54] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AN IDLE SONG 

T?REE living, free giving, may scarce be un- 
done. 
What magic recaptures the rays of the sun? 

They are fled, they are sped to the eyeHds of 
men, 

And the Hght that is given, none taketh again. 

Sap springing, lark singing, and young hearts 
afire 

With the tender green flame of an April de- 
sire. 

It may die, it may lie like brown reeds in the 
fen. 

But the love that is given, none taketh again. 



[55] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



w 



AMORINO 

AS it a mere caprice of mateless passion? 
So kind a memory that could never 
claim ; 

Our little love, in quaintly childish fashion, 

Was not unworthy of the nobler name. 

Not the high god who touches the here- 
after. 

Bearing within ^* bosom life and death, 

But a slim str: ig Eros, winged with 
laughter, 

Globing bright bubble-moments with warm 
breath. 



T>EFORE the august gaze of mighty blisses 
•^^ That since have stooped to glorify our 
clay, 
All unabashed, he juggles our past kisses, 
And with a smile we watch him at his play. 
He never masked in majesty forbidden, 

~ [56] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AMORINO (continued) 

Nor filched the due of greater gods than he ; 
Wherefore he keeps, in gentle mirth unchid- 

den, 
His little share of immortality. 



[57] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



w 



SURPRISES 

HEN through the shadow thou shalt see 

Death smile 
And greet him as the sleepless greet the 

light, 
When thou shalt close thine eyes a little 

while 
To open them in perfectness of sight, 
Must not thy quickened spirit shrink for 

shame 
When touched by near Omniscience to con- 
fess 
How many blots of unexpected blame 
Sully thy life's apparent nobleness? 
But with the evil shall be manifest 
Unconscious virtue that from thee hath 

sprung; 
Good unpremeditated and unguessed, 
Rich harvest of a seed at random flung. 
That hour of vision shall to thee disclose 
My love for thee, a wild heart's thornless 

rose. 

[58] " 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IN DEEP PLACES 

T LOVE thee, dear, and knowing mine own 

•*■ heart 

With every beat I give God thanks for this ; 
I love thee only for the self thou art ; 
No wild embrace, no wisdom-shaking kiss, 
No passionate pleading of a heart laid bare, 
No urgent cry of love's extremity — 
Strong traps to take the spirit unaware — 
Not one of these I ever had of thee. 
Neither of passion nor of pity wrought 
Is this, the love to which at last I yield, 
But shapen in the stillness of my thought 
And by a birth of agony revealed. 
Here is a thing to live while we do live 
Which honours thee to take and me to give. 



[59] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



HIS SONG FOR HER WAKING 



T 



T 



IS dawn in the sky of the world, 

*Tis dawn in the sky of my heart, 
And earth is the bud of a rose 
Whose petals are trembling apart; 
So I come to your door in the dawn 
And I breathe you my life in a word. 
You would smile, you would lean from 

your window, my Queen, 
If you heard — if you heard. 

HE earth is all throbbing with fire 
And I am a pulse of the flame ; 
All breathless the universe beats 
Like a heart that is tuned to your name. 
As the stars in their courses last night 
Kept time to each breath that you drew. 
But our passion is dumb — oh, my love, you 

would come 
If you knew — if you knew — 

[6^] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



HIS SONG FOR HER WAKING (continued) 

V/'OU would glow in the flush of the dawn 
You glitter so coldly above. 
You would lean like a rose to his cry 
Who yearns to the lips of your love. 
You would raise him who faints at your feet 
To a height that his hope never dared. 
You would warm the poor clod in your arms 

to a god — 
If you cared — if you cared. 



[6i] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE NARROW WAY 

A T sunset the young monk leaned from the 
^^ wall 

To greet the fisher girl who passed below. 
She answered gay " Good even " to his call, 
But then he sighed, ** Sunset or sunrise glow 
" Are both alike to me ; ah, what of good 
" For one so sad, holds either night or day? " 

" 'Tis twilight in the shadow of your hood — 
" Go pray, Father — go pray! " 



44 



IITY soul is famished for the simple joys 

" Free to mankind — why not, alas, to 
me? 
"The throbbing outer world's insistent 

noise 
" Allures me like a magic melody. 
"With wistfulness that warms to some- 
thing fonder 

[6^1 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE NARROW WAY (continued) 

" I hear the village children at their 
play." 

" Their clamour could not reach the chapel 

yonder — 
" Go pray. Father — go pray." 

*'\7'OU are so sweet — Madonna's eyes are 
^ cold — 

*' Madonna's lips have never learned your 
grace. 

"Ah, smile again that I may grow more 
bold! 

"Why, hand in hand, should we not flee 
this place 

" Of gnawing discontent and barren sor- 
row? " 

'* Nay, Father, that's a deadly sin, they say — 
*' Beside. . . . Uguccio takes me home to- 
morrow! 

" Go pray. Father — go pray*' 



[63] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE END OF IT 

^T^HE earth weighs down my lids — they for- 
get the feeling of tears ; 
The heavy clods on my heart numb it to 

pleasure and pain, 
And my blood shall freeze or flame to your 
mood as in bygone years 
Never again, Beloved — never again. 

T STROVE to see as you saw, I strove to hear 
as you heard, 
I strove to stride with your strength, catch- 
ing my labouring breath. 
And never you slackened your speed to toss 
me a heartening word — 
Weary to death. Beloved — weary to death. 



[64] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE END OF IT (continued) 

TF you called in the name of our love, I would 
•*• not open mine eyes ; 
If you called in the name of my sorrow, no 

sigh would stir in my breast; 
If you called me with God's own voice, I 
would answer not nor arise, 
Now that I rest, Beloved — now that I rest. 



[65] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



N 



A MIRACLE 

EITHER in passion nor in play, 

But dreamily, half unaware, 
We kissed as drowsy children may, 
Sliding to sleep from evening prayer. 
So brief, so calm, the passing touch 
That meant so little — and so much. 



^OR memory sees the wondrous thing 

The moment stood too near to know. 
The fragile innocence of spring 
I thought had faded long ago, 
Our quiet lips found blossoming yet 
Like an October violet. 



[66] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



w 



THE TOYS' COMPLAINT 

E sheltered women, love-enwrapt, 

Whose every wish is gratified, 
From all adversity close lapt 
In tenderness and kindly pride — 
We from whose path you put aside 
The possibility of care. 
We women shielded and supplied — 
What burdens can we have to bear? 



CMILING as at a child's demands 
You fill these idle days of ours; 
You give us roses for our hands 
And songs to sing among our flowers. 
We twine you garlands of delight — 
You only ask to find us fair 
When weary you come home at night. 
Is not our burden light to bear? 



[67] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE TOYS* COMPLAINT (continued) 



w 



E are the garden of your ease, 

And if we bloom, you are content. 
It would but rob you of your peace 
If to your loads our shoulders bent — 
But ah, to see you sad and spent! 
To know the pain we may not share ! 
Pity us, Masters, and relent — 
This burden is too great to bear. 



[68] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



o 



THE FORFEIT 

NLY for this, dear heart, only for this 

Do I regret 
The hour earth fell away, and left our kiss 
A passionate star where soul and body met. 
Only for this, dear heart, only for this 
Would I — if it were possible — forget. 
For this — that I can never see your eyes 
Without remembering their transfigured 

light 
That shone upon me then 
As Love drew near and took us by surprise. 
That I can never give to you again 
The quiet-pulsing touch of friendship only, 
For memory of your touch that summer 

night. 
I know that you are weary, bruised and 

lonely. 
Craving a comrade's tranquil tenderness — 
But since to give you more I have no right, 

— _ 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE FORFEIT (continued) 

I needs must give you less. 

Is this the inevitable tax of pain 

Because our love was fettered to a lie — 

That I must see you look to me in vain 

And never tell you why? 

Once, only once, if I might bring to you 

The comfortable balm for which you plead! 

Once, only once, if I might be and do 

All that you need ! 

But slowly, surely, like a wall of stone, 

Our parted lives more hopelessly to sever, 

Rises this barrier — to be overthrown 

Never. 

Only for this, dear heart — only for this 

Do I regret. . . . 



[70] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



I WAS TOO PROUD 

T WAS too proud to hazard all, 
Too prudent and too wise. 
I would not speak till I could see 
Surrender in her eyes. 
So patiently I held my peace 
And waited for the sign. 
I heard that she was dead, to-day — 
She whispered at the end, they say, 
God's name . . . and mine. 



[71] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



TO A PRESSED ROSE 

T OVELY faded rose! 
"^ Had but my fortune beckoned me 
that way 
Among the silver stirrings of the day 
That Nature for your blossom-triumph 

chose ! 
Had I but seen your maiden leaves unfold 
From your immaculate heart of fragrant 

gold! 
I was not there ; another passed — who 

knows 
How many others, lovely faded rose? 

And yet, had it been I 
Who came between your crimson and the 

sky, 
You would have been a rose among the 

rest — 
A beauty-breathing joy upon my breast, 
And then — a rain of petals by the way. 



IN DEEP PLACES 



TO A PRESSED ROSE (continued) 

My thanks to God or man, who chose to lay 

Your glowing over-sweet 
Within the cloistered calm of this retreat. 
I would not have you for my wearing — no. 
It had been easy to forget you, so. 
Now in my memory tenderly I close 

A lovely faded rose. 



[73] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IN MEMORY OF A DUMB FRIEND 

CTRANGE that so small mortality should 
leave 
So large an emptiness! for as we grieve 
Your little life of seven happy years 
Ended for us, one who could understand 
Each subtle word, and answer hand with 

hand 
Had hardly taken greater toll of tears. 

V^ET why should we not mourn as for a friend ? 
That name was yours; if every man would 

spend 
His life as well, earth were not hard to save. 
Grant that God made your heart and brain 

but small. 
What more has an archangel than his all? 
And all God gave to you, to us you gave. 



[74] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



TO A CHILD 

T OVE me, till you learn to judge me, 
"*-^ With candid sweetness unreserved. 
Your growing reason must begrudge me 
The honour I have not deserved. 
But linger not to look beyond 
When once the kindly veil is torn, 
And spare a heart that still is fond 
The torment of your wondering scorn. 



[75] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AUNT JANE 

A UNT JANE has little shiny feet 
And pretty buttons in each ear ; 
She has the nicest things to eat ! 
I like to come and visit here. 
She has a dog — his name is Roy ; 
He's great — we have a lot of fun. 
She hasn't any little boy 
And so she has to borrow one. 

l\/f Y cousin Roy is very plain — 

I think he never combs his hair. 
I like him better than Aunt Jane — 
She has the kind of clothes that tear. 
Roy never gets too tired to play — 
He's always jolly — anyway, 
I like him better . . . through the 

day. . . . 
But when he goes to sleep at night 
He doesn't care for me a bit. 

[76] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



AUNT JANE (continued) 

But I'm not scared without a light, 
Because Aunt Jane comes in to sit 
And hear my prayers, and tuck the spread 
Around my neck, and smooth my head, — 
And then I don't care how she's dressed, 
I know I love Aunt Jane the best. 



A 



UNT JANE, of course, is very old; 

She must be twenty-three or four. 
Nothing I do can make her scold, 
Not even when I bang the door. 
The other day it made me cry 
To think how soon Aunt Jane will die. 



[77] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



o 



LIE AWAKE SONGS 



FTEN when awake I lie 

Listening to the clocks go round 
Hours and hours, I wonder why 
My brother sleeps so sound. 



T 



HE city is so kind to me ; 

It stays awake for company — 
It never sleeps at all. 
Its lamps are always burning bright 
From when my mother says good-night 
Until the milkmen call. 
The street is always full of wheels, 
Horse-carriages and automobiles — 
The whole night long they pass, 
Carrying home to marble halls 

F78] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



LIE AWAKE SONGS (continued) 

Princesses that have been to balls 

In little shoes o£ glass. 

Then there's the dog across the way 

He must be dreaming of the day 

Or barking at a kitty — 

And people talking as they go . . . 

I often wonder do they know 

That I'm awake and like them so, 

Or is it just — the City? 



/^"^ OD has a house three streets away, 
^^^ And every Sunday, rain or shine, 

My nurse goes there her prayers to say. 
She's told me of the candles fine 
That burning all night long they keep 
Because God never goes to sleep. 
Then there's a steeple full of bells; 
All through the dark the time it tells. 
I like to hear it in the night 
And think about those candles bright. 
I wonder if God stays awake 

[79] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



LIE AWAKE SONGS (continued) 

For kindness, like the furnace-man 

Who comes before it's day, to make 

Our house as pleasant as he can. 

I like to watch the sky grow blue 

And think perhaps the whole world through 

No one's awake but just us three, — 

God and the furnace-man and me. 



[80] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



H 



H 



A POET 

IS lips have been hallowed with flame; 

By pain they are pure to repeat 
The wonderful whispers of God 
That speak in the hush of his soul ; 
Yet if we would trace where he trod 
Toward the glorious lure of his goal, 
In what bitter byways of shame 
Are the prints of his wandering feet! 

IS eyes have the light of the stars 

Whose secrets they search unafraid. 
For him the great mystery wakes 
To beauty whose vision is power ; 
But his face is disfigured with scars 
That warfare ignoble has made, 
And idly his carelessness breaks 
A heart like the stem of a flower. 



[8i] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



A POET (continued) 

A ND yet, to far valleys forlorn 
'^ ^ Where saints without aureole grope 
To garland the altars of light 
In a blindness of patience and prayer, 
Like the shout of a trumpet is borne 
The vision that flashed on his sight, 
And they hear in their twilight of hope, 
A triumph of dawn in the air. 



A 



LL are but parts of the Whole. 

He laboureth never in vain 
Who chose in marred vessels of clay 
To light the unquenchable spark. 
The seer who fell by the way — 
The steadfast, uncomforted soul — 
God, who gave birth to the twain. 
Is joining their hands in the dark. 



[82] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



A MINOR POET 

^T^HE firefly, flickering about 
-■• In busy brightness, near and far 
Lets not his little lamp go out 
Because he cannot be a star. 
He only seeks, the hour he lives, 
Bravely his tiny part to play, 
And all his being freely gives 
To make a summer evening gay. 



[83] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ONE OF MANY 

COME sing among the trumpets in the fray — 
^ Such breathless glory hers might never be ; 
Her heart and voice were all too gentle-gray 
For such high psalmody. 



B 



UT she could croon a little child to sleep, 
And whisper in the twilight to a maid 

Who felt within her heart the springtime 
leap — 
Half-joyous, half-afraid. 

HE knew no ringing war-cry for the strong; 

Her voice no latent might to action 
charmed ; 
But silent rallied to her soothing song 

The fallen, the disarmed. 



[84] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ONE OF MANY (continued) 

"^JOR rose nor laurel to her burial bring — 

Above her let the green sod simply close. 
Some day, from that forgotten mound may 
spring 
A laurel — or a rose. 



[85] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



WHOM THE GODS LOVE 

IVE me thy youth, give me thy urgent 

youth ; 
Thy youth to me, who know not youth nor 

age. 
For those who serve me I have little ruth; 
My flaying scourge shall be thine only wage, 
And yet I call thee from the easy way 
Knowing, despite thy fear, thou wilt obey. 
Give me thy youth. 

/'^IVE me thy heart, give me thy passionate 
^^ heart; 

Thy heart to me, who know not love nor 

hate. 
Thy flesh may be a garment rent apart. 
Thy soul may shiver bare and desolate. 
But though the snug hearth beckon thy de- 
sire, 
Me thou shalt follow from the lesser fire. 
Give me thy heart. 



IN DEEP PLACES 



WHOM THE GODS LOVE (continued) 

/"^ I VE me thy life, no less — thy human life ; 
^^ Thy life to me who know not death nor 
birth, 
And I will give thee hungering and strife, 
The empty praise and mockery of earth. 
And at the last I will give thee, even I, 
One boon supreme — the readiness to die. 
Give me thy life. 



[87] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



T 



THE GUEST 

HOU who tarriest at my gate, 
Pass along the sunny street. 
Do faces marred as mine is, wait 
With smiles a guest to greet? 



T OVE, who touched my lips with fire, 
Sadly smiling, granted me 
The fulness of my fool's desire — 
A scar for all to see. 



pASS — thou knowest I do not dare 
From my toil mine eyes to raise 
Lest I see thee standing there 
As in those other days. 



"D ALEFUL Guest, hast thou not wrought 
-^ All thy will of evil yet? 

Hast forgot thy scar, that naught 

Can soothe me to forget? 

fis] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE GUEST (continued) 

/^HILD, lay by thy bitterness — 
^^ Evil would I work thee none 
Rather would I bid thee bless 
What cannot be undone. 



T^ YES grown soft with many a tear 
Are not hasty to be hard, 
And comfort speaks to shame and fear 
Through lips my fire hath scarred. 



D 



O not fear to lift thine eyes, 

Do not fear to ope thy door. 
Thou shalt know my Paradise 
Who knewest my Hell of yore. 



T 



IS the narrow hearts that break 

And in breaking stand confessed 
Happier so, if thus they make 
The Greater Love their guest. 



[89] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE VOICE OF THE UNBORN 

T?ROM the Unseen I come to you to-night, 
The Hope and Expectation of your world. 
I am Omniscience that seeks of you 
A tongue to utter the eternal thought. 
I am Omnipotence that claims of you 
The tools whereby my power may profit 

earth. 
All Love am I, that seeks to spend itself 
Embodied in a human sacrament, 
For I have heard the wailing of the world, 
Not faint and far away as in a dream, 
But very near — and lo, I understood 
It need not be. Wherefore I come to you. 



o 



YOU to whom my tenderness goes out. 
To whom I fain would bring an end of 
groans 
And blind, bewildered tears, a cloudless 
dawn 

[9^1 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE VOICE OF THE UNBORN (continued) 

Of unimagined joy and strength unguessed. 
What welcome will you give to me, O 

World? 
Since I whose dwelling is the universe 
Will stoop to walls and rafters for your sake, 
What is the home you have prepared for me? 
O Men and Women, is it beautiful, 
A place of peace, a house of harmony? 
Will you be glad, who know me as I am, 
To see me make my habitation there? 
Since I will hamper my divinity 
With weight of mortal raiment for your 

sake, 
What vesture have you woven for my wear? 
O Man and Woman who have fashioned it 
Together, is it fine and clean and strong. 
Made in such reverence of holy joy, 
Of such unsullied substance, that your hearts 
Leap with glad awe to see it clothing me, 
The glory of whose nakedness you know? 



[91] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE VOICE OF THE UNBORN (continued) 

/^H long long silence of the wakening years! 
^^^ Thus have I called since man took shape 
as man; 
Thus will I call till all mankind shall heed 
And know me, who to-day am one with God, 
And whom to-morrow shall behold, your 
child. 

From the Unseen I come to you to-night. . . , 



[92] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



NEW LIFE 

QPRING comes laughing down the valley 
^ All in white, from the snow 

Where the winter's armies rally 
Loth to go. 

Beauty white her garments shower 

On the world where they pass, — 

Hawthorn hedges, trees in flower, 

Daisies in the grass. 

Tremulous with longings dim. 

Thickets by the river's rim 

Have begun to dream of green. 

Every tree is loud with birds. 

Bourgeon, heart, — do thy part ! 

Raise a slender stalk of words 

From a root unseen. 



[93] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE STANDARD BEARER 

C WIFTLY the shrieking fire-bird gleams 
Before his blank, bewildered face. 
Close to his ear the bullet screams, 
The battle swirls about his place. 



o 



o 



NE thought alone stands clear to him 

Whose rigid arms the Standard keep, 
Before whose desperate eyes and dim 
The ranks reel by as seen in sleep, 

NE longing — in the orchard lane. 

Far from this blazing blare of death, 
To stand at twilight once again 
And draw one deep, untroubled breath. 



[94] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE DOUBLE CROWNING 

T A VISH roses carpeted the ways for him ; 
Noiseless beat his charger's feet, passing 
through the town. 

Lavish banners made the walls ablaze for 
him, 

Dancing like his young blue eyes beneath the 
golden crown. 

From every crowded alley there surged into 
the street 

A sweep of lifted faces, a wave of living foam. 

Silken sleeves of maidens caressed his ar- 
moured feet ; 

All the bells were shouting when the king 
came home. 



[95] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE DOUBLE CROWNING (continued) 

OILENT, smitten, gazed he o'er the press of 
*^ them 

Where upon the market-place the Crucified 

looked down. 
Silent, smiting, fell beyond the guess of them 
The shadow of the Crown of Thorns across 

the golden crown. 
Beyond the shimmering banners he saw the 

walls of stone, 
Below the trampled flowers the streets that 

had run red, 
And heavy fell upon him the burden of his 

throne — 
Amid the sheaves of gladness the harvest of 
the dead. 



[96] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE DOUBLE CROWNING (continued) 

"O UTHLESS ages took that hour their toll of 
-*^ him. 

All the joyous clamour of his people could 
not drown 

Ruthless ages crying to the soul of him, 

" Evermore the Crown of Thorns beneath 
the golden crown ! " 

The heedless merry city, that trod its blos- 
somed floor, 

The rainbow of the banners, the drunken 
bells aswing. 

The brave blue eyes whose boyhood was 
gone forevermore, 

The shouting of the people — the silence of 
the king! 



[97] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



BEAUTY 

r>LESSED be Beauty, that awaits 
Our vision at our very gates ! 
There hangs above these meadows low 
As richly strange an opal glow 
As deepens into violet 
Behind a Moorish minaret, 
Or where the Sphinx outstares the years. 
The little hills of Ramapo 
Smile eastward full as goldenly 
When fades the last supplanted star 
As mighty mountains, rising far 
Beyond the leagues of sapphire sea 
That cradle white Algiers. 



B 



LESSED be God who gave to me 

A thankful heart and eyes that see, 
Who set my feet in quiet ways 
Amid his garden sweet with praise. 
And yet — oh Father ! what of them 



IN DEEP PLACES 



BEAUTY (continued) 

Who may not even touch the hem 
Of Beauty's robe — at the harsh urge 
Of hopeless pain and poverty 
Forever plying weary hands, 
Forever straining weary eyes, 
To whom the sun's ecstatic rise 
Means one day more of toil's demands 
The lifting of the scourge? 



A 



ND yet, once more — a Beauty lies 

Beyond the gaze of any eyes. 
Beyond the sunset islands far, 
Above the throbbing morning-star. 
And deeper than the sea is deep. 
I have beheld, as one in sleep 
Beholds a dream scarce understood, 
Two lives defaced as failures are. 
Ruins to pity and despise, 
Maimed butts of fortune, best forgot. 
These captives of the sordid lot 
Looked in each other's faded eyes 
And all their world was good. 

[99] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE SACRIFICE 

pALE lips that trembled under mine 
She brought to me. 
A love less human than divine 
They taught to me. 
But now too fixedly they smile, — 
Too ruddily — 

Set, like a vampire's, to beguile 
Men bloodily. 



T 



HOUGH time has graven on her brow 

No change to me, 
The eyes she turns upon me now 
Are strange to me. 

Ah, dear lost love, what fiend has caught 
The soul of you, 
That in our happy days I thought 
The whole of you? 



[lOO] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE SACRIFICE (continued) 

A LAS, 'twas I, to whom she gave 
-^^ Too royally. 

She loved me from my living grave 

Too loyally. 

Heedless of all that might befall, 

The cost to her 

Unreckoning, she gave me all 

That's lost to her. 

QHE bears the burden of the sin 
Once bound on me. 
She takes the rags to wrap her in 
She found on me. 
Thou God of Justice, I have lost 
The way to her. 
Take thou my life, and all it cost 
Repay to her ! 



[lOl] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



H 



H 



THE LAME CHILD 

E passed along our village street ; 

The fame of him had gone before 
And many ran on whispering feet 
To mock or wonder or appeal. 
I caught my child from where he lay 
And stood expectant at the door. 
Many the sick he healed that day, 
But mine he did not heal. 

E paused before us where we stood 

And looked into my boy's blue eyes 
Those eyes of tortured babyhood 
Questioning life with hurt surprise. 
It would have taken but a word 
To make the future sweet and clear — 
Many the prayers that day he heard, 
But mine he did not hear. 



[102] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE LAME CHILD (continued) 



Y 



ET this he did — his head he bent 

And kissed my child upon the cheek. 
He turned upon me, as he went, 
Eyes that were wonderful with tears. 
Silent I shrank before the deeps 
Of mysteries too great to speak — 
But oh, my patient son who creeps 
Along his crippled years! 



[103] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



M 



A 



GYPSY-HEART 

Y grandsire was a vagabond 

Who made the Road his bride. 
He left his son a wanderer's heart 
And little enough beside ; 
And all his life my father heard 
The fluting of a hidden bird 
That lured him on from hedge to hedge 
To walk the world so wide. 

ND now he Vv^alks the worlds beyond 

And drifts on hidden seas 
Undesecrated by a chart — 
Blithe derelict at ease. 
And sometimes when I halt at night, 
In answer to my campfire's light 
His own uplifts a glowing wedge 
Among the Pleiades. 



[104] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



GYPSY-HEART (continued) 



w 



OMEN are fair but all too fond ; 

Home holds a man too fast. 
I'll choose for mine a freeman's part 
And sing as I go past. 
No lighted windows beckon me. 
The open sky my canopy. 
I'll camp upon Creation's edge, 
A wanderer to the last. 



[105] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE VAGABOND GROWN OLD 

QO warm the lighted windows glow 
*^ Across the darkness and the snow — 
The trodden road, the sodden road, 
The road wherein I chose to go. 

nr^HE winter skies are steely gray — 
The winter stars are far away. 
Light were my feet when winds were sweet, 
But bitter going's mine to-day. 



'\7'ET as I trudge, I needs must sing, 
'■■ For be he vagabond or king, 

A man must choose what he will lose — 
And I have known the road in spring. 



[io6] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT 

"DLAME us not, ah, blame us not, ye folk who 

love the sun, 
Whose longings haunt the fields at noon, 

the ingleside at night; 
For we are of another blood and feel our 

pulses run 
As run the tides to meet the moon and leap 

beneath her light. 



w 



E sit beside your hearth-stones with our 
faces to the fire. 

But our hearts within are straitened — (do 
ye ever understand?) 

For we long to turn away — yet dare not 
yield to the desire — 

Where the moonlight at the window beck- 
ons, beckons like a hand. 



[107] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT (continued) 

'TpHE household phrases come to us as in a 
tongue unknown. 

We gaze at you unseeing, for our thoughts 
are far away 

Like scattered flakes of star-dust on the fly- 
ing cloud-rack blown 

Beyond the placid vision of the children of 
the day. 

13 LAME us not, ye quiet ones who crouch be- 
side the flame 

And rule it as ye rule your souls, with meas- 
ured, tranquil hand. 

Nay, but my words are idle. Give us neither 
praise nor blame. 

Only be blind forever, since ye cannot under- 
stand. 



[io8] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE LITTLE PEOPLE 

P>ECAUSE I dreamed with open eyes and 

watched the stars at night, 
Because I loved the forest and wandered 

there alone, 
The Little Faery People that mock at human 

might 
They set a spell upon me and chose me for 

their own. 



npHE Little People told me of a country 
strange and sweet — 

Builded with words of beauty I saw its tow- 
ers rise; 

But I knew my mother listened for the com- 
ing of my feet — 

In tears the vision darkened and vanished 
from mine eyes. 



[109] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE LITTLE PEOPLE (continued) 

npHE Little People bade me choose — to cast 
with them my lot, 

Or nevermore to see them for mine own kin- 
dred's sake. 

Their deep eyes yearned upon me, but I 
could heed them not. 

My people were my people — what choice 
was mine to make? 

TVTY people are my people and dear they are 
^ -*■ to me; 

Yet sometimes comes a longing till I 

hardly dare to pray. 
For that far land of wonder that I shall 

never see 
And for the Little People from whom I 

turned away. 



[no] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



H 



T 



HERE STOOD A HOUSE 

ERE stood a house ; we now can only guess 
From what scant lore the bare foundation 
yields 

The building's fashion, whose calm comeli- 
ness 

Complacent looked across the fruitful fields, 

This was a home — now fire has laughed 
and fled 

Leaving a wreck instead. 

HIS was a home for human comfort 

raised — 

Now the shy creatures of the air and grass 
Nest in the blackened pit and start amazed 
If any human foot too near them pass. 
Merciless tranquil Nature takes again 
The land she lent to men. 



[Ill] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



HERE STOOD A HOUSE (continued) 



B 



UT pity not this house, for while it stood 
Its walls were warm with comfort and en- 
shrined 
Glad hearts that savoured life and found it 

good. 
It was a temple of the quiet mind. 
Its very altar*s consecrated glow 
Has wrought its overthrow. 



TTERE was no shameful torture of decay; 
The vivid end with sudden glory came. 
In terrible beauty all was swept away, 
Man's dearest art translated into flame. 
So swift and shining may thy coming be, 
Enlightening Death, to me. 



[112] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE CRICKET IN THE PATH 

CHE passed through the shadowy garden, so 
tall and so white, 
Her eyes on the stars and her face like an an- 
gel's upturned, 
And it seemed to my thought that the dusk 
round her head with the light 
Of an aureole burned. 

OUT where she had trodden unseeing, I found 
on the path 
A cricket, so frail that her light foot had 

maimed it, yet strong 
To valiantly pipe, tiny hero, a faint aftermath 
Of its yesterday song. 



[113] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE CRICKET IN THE PATH (continued) 

A ND I whispered, " Alas, Little Brother, why 
'^^ must it befall 

That the passing of angels but cripples and 

leaves us to die? 
Poor imp of the greensward, God trumpets 
me clear in thy call ; 

Thou art braver than I. 

*'npHE Bright Ones of Heaven have trodden 
me down as they passed; 
I crawl in their footsteps a trampled and 

impotent thing. 
I know not the reason, nor question hence- 
forth. To the last, 

While I live, I will sing." 



[114] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



H 



THREE WOMEN 

FIAMMETTA 

ER speech like a tame serpent hisses; 
She glows like a flower of the south ; 
The bruises of yesterday's kisses 
Are purple to-day on her mouth. 
Time bears from her beauty no plunder 
Nor kindles a soul in her eyes ; 
And to-morrow — what is there, I wonder, 
To live when she dies? 



[115] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THREE WOMEN (continued) 



SYLVIA 

TN the twilight was her birth 
Of a passion and a prayer; 
Half of heaven, half of earth. 
Kin to wildlings of the air. 
Finely tuned to joy and pain, 
At a breath her mind will stir; 
Love may hurt his hands in vain 
At the doorless heart of her. 
Like an opal, fair with flaws, 
Rarely blessed, darkly cursed. 
She was made in scorn of laws. 
Not quite human from the first. 



[ii6] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



"f HREE WOMEN (continued) 



CISTER is she to woodlands deep 
And quiet-bosomed noonday skies; 
To calm, encircling leagues of sea 
Unfathomed in serenity. 
Not over-quick to laugh or weep 
Are the clear candours of her eyes. 
The still, unboasting strength is hers 
• That stays the immemorial hills. 
Comfort and cheer her presence lays 
Like footprints all along her ways; 
The simplest of Love's ministers. 
Unconscious what a place she fills. 



[117] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



o 



A 



A 



THE CHILD IN BLACK 

UT in the street the children play; 

They shout and laugh till I come by, 
Then they are still and go away — 
I wonder why. 

ND grown-up people's faces too — 
Until they see me, they are glad. 
I wonder what it is I do 

That turns them sad. 

ND father — when he looks at me 
He is sad too, and though he tries 
To wink them back, I always see 
Tears in his eyes. 



N 



OBODY looks at me the same 

Since mother went to Heaven to stay. 
Do they think I am to blame 
For sending her away? 



IN DEEP PLACES 



I 



ON A HILL-TOP 

^TEEP the ascent to which we laughing bent; 

) Slowly we left the weary slope behind. 
Now hand in hand upon the crest we stand 
Amid the shouting welcome of the wind. 

TOO rejoice with its exultant voice 
That we upon this hill-top once have stood 
Before we die, together, you and I, 
To see our world and know that it is good. 



T 



O find the worth of this perplexing earth 

Which yet is of our heaven the only gate ; 
Where life must be ere immortality 
Can its transfiguration consummate. 



[119] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ON A HILL-TOP (continued) 



T 



HE test we need ere spirit may succeed 
To perfect power and unimagined 

scope — 
Where dreams untried must ever dreams 

abide 
And hopeless is the unattempted hope. 



w 



H 



E who have caught the substance of our 
thought 

May smile triumphant though our path- 
ways part. 

You of my best forever stand possessed, 

And greater for your greatness is my heart. 

ENCE we shall turn more eager to discern 

The hid Shekinah of our neighbour's soul, 

Stronger to dare our brief blind part to bear 

In the slow silent growth of God's great 

Whole. 



[120] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



ON A HILL-TOP (continued) 

A WORD, the flower of this uplifted hour 
Shall turn the chill of time and space to 
mirth ; 
A deed that springs from these forgotten 

things 
Shall link us yet across the breadth of 
earth — 

OHALL link us yet, although we may forget. 
Our thoughts may pass, our inmost selves 
endure. 
Yea, life and death may come and go like 

breath — 
Wrought in our souls, this moment lives se- 
cure. 



[121] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



DAWN 

/^REEN bud of davm 

^"'^ That shyly in the east now dost unfold 

The glowing garments of thy heart of gold, 

I look to thee across the shadowy lawn 

Hoary with dew. 

Purged by clean slumber as a soul by death 

I lift my brow to meet thy blessed breath. 

All hail, thou messenger of Him who saith, 

" Lo, I make all things new." 



T 



HE early breeze 

Quickens to sudden whispering all the 
trees ; 
The orchard yeomen in their sturdy ranks, 
The slender cedars halted on the flanks 
Of every hill, the copse's quivering green — 
Even the height serene 
Of the old hemlocks is a moment stirred 
As if among their aged boughs they heard 

[122] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



DAWN (continued) 

The magic murmur of that master-word 
Thou daily speakst man's weariness to 

cheer, 
O Dawn — would man but hear. 

A SIGN from Heaven long ago men sought, 
And he to whom their questionings were 
brought 
Marvelled in sadness ; how should even he 
Give signs to them who had no eyes to see? 
Dear God, how blindly do thy children trace 
This marvellous earth-manuscript of thine! 
Weary of study, we are baffled yet 
By the great lessons for our learning set, 
And clamour eagerly with lifted face 
To Heaven for a sign. 

'TpHERE shall no sign be given, 

For we are hedged with portents undi- 
vined. 
God waits until the fetters of the mind 
At last be riven. 
And as we grope 

[123] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



DAWN (continued) 

Amid the growing glory, we behold 
The Dawn's recurrent miracle unfold 
The heavenly word for hope. 
The clouds of yesterday, 
Although they smother all the blue, avail 
No whit the mounting of the sun to stay, 
' Who like a strong young king in golden 
mail 
Leaps up behind the gray. 
Earth, air, and sea may rage in mortal strife 
But calmly certain, over death and life 
Rises the still, unconquerable Day. 
And so shall Man arise 
From sullen-clotted clouds of past mistake, 
Sorrow and disappointment, and awake 
With some indomitable dawn, to break 
The seal of Paradise. 



[124] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



T 



THE HERO 

HEY asked him for his story, when he came 
Battered and glorious from the floating 

hell 
Where he had wrung his victory from death. 
But he, the hero, had no tale to tell — 
Simply he gave them answer, with a smile 
That made them flinch and take a quicker 

breath — 
" I only know we worked in sweat and flame 
" And it was well worth while." 



'O you shall stand some day, amazed and 

faint 
Among the wondering angels, file on file 
Of beautiful bright faces, all ablaze 
With your achievement, vivid with your 

praise, 
Asking of you, their bleeding warrior-saint. 
Your own triumphant tale of battle won. 



IN DEEP PLACES 



THE HERO (continued) 

And you, who knew not all that you had 

done, 
Shall gaze bewildered on them, reeling yet 
From those long years of mortal weariness. 
No hope of this upheld you in the stress — 
You only knew you wrought in blood and 

sweat, 
And it was well worth while. 



[126] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IMMORTAL 

OECAUSE your hand 

Grew tired and laid the busy brush 
aside ; 
Because your weary eyes forewent their 

sight, 
Shall none of all the pictures you had planned 
Take form and colour for the world's de- 
light— 

Because you died? 

^T^HE hope that kept 

Through patient years of uncon- 
genial toil 
Your spirit's lamp sustained with sacred oil, 
The dream and the desire that never slept — 
Did all the wonder-world that was your art 
Stop with your heart? 



[127] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IMMORTAL (continued) 

A TIME so brief 
'^ ^ After your long probation, to de- 
clare 
Your hoarded visions — strangely hard it 

seems ! 
Is even God so rich beyond belief 
That he from his eternity could spare 
Your waiting dreams? 

TTE does not waste. 
-*■-■• A thought once born, forevermore 
must live. 
Bountiful spirit, that so loved to give, 
With what a high delight you now dispense 
In glorious largess, without stint or haste, 
Your opulence! 



[128] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



IMMORTAL (continued) 

T SEE you guide 

The hand of some young painter to 
reveal 
The truth you lived so many years to feel, 
Your joy in his achievement doubly deep. 
Your joy . . . ah, how have we the heart to 
weep 

Because you died? 



[ 129] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



H 



TO WALTER SCOTT 

MELROSE 

OW often has he Hngered here alone 

In such a golden evensong of spring, 
Making the eye-sweet melody of stone 
More lovely by his words' accompanying — 
Singing for very youth of heart, compelled 
By the keen urge of beauty, even as now 
Tweed sings along the valley, April-swelled, 
While the green slopes flush slowly to the 
plow. 



[130] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



T 



ABBOTSFORD 

HIS dream come true in quaintly towered 

stone, 
This palace of desire's accomplishment, 
Here in his thought already had he known 
A sunset calm of richly earned content. 
When a harsh clarion summoned him to 

fight 
In sordid lists, to purge another's shame. 
Harp-hearted, he rang true, and proved him 

knight 
Of that high chivalry who reck not fame, 
Being content to stand with shield unstained 
Before God's face. Crown with a nation's 

meed 
The Bard — but here, where patient and 

constrained 
He toiled, when he had hoped to soar in- 
deed. 
Humbled, be still. His victory is gained 
And of earth's wordy praise there is no need. 



[131] 



IN DEEP PLACES 



H 



DRYBURGH 

ERE lies his battered armour, hacked and 

scarred 
By the long conflict. Look, what fitter 

place 
To hold the garb so honourably marred! 
Green house of sleep, from which the years 

efface 
One after one, man's futile traceries, 
As one by one frail children of the pen 
Faint slowly to forgotten silences. 
Naught is immortal but the God in men. 



[132] 



^ 



